"We believe that owner occupation levels have peaked and will continue the decline which we have seen over the past few years,"he explained.

Among the major reasons for this is that young professionals struggle to raise the size of deposit now needed to obtain a mortgage.

With this in mind, Mr Cook advised private landlords looking to offload some of their properties to reconsider and "take a mid-term view"of both the potential offered by the rental market and house price trends.

His recommendations come after the latest edition of the FindaProperty.com Rental Index revealed that the number of houses available to rent fell last month.